Tony Clarke, the "Sixth Moody" Passes Away

Sometimes things just slip by unless you know the correct sources or you're following the right people on Twitter.  That's apparently what happened with the passing of British record producer Tony Clarke, who was known as the "sixth Moody" after all the work he did with the Moody Blues.

Clarke passed away on Monday and, searching on his name in Twitter, the first words began to come out the next day but, unless you followed the right people, you would never have known.  There was not (and still is not) any news in the major media.  Graham Edge of the group posted the simple statement "tony clarke has died, sad news" on Wednesday.  A Moody fan site, Travelingeternityroad.yuku.com, put up a statement in their bulletin board where over one hundred people have offered their condolences, yet nobody in the major media has noticed.

Clarke was a jack-of-all-trades in the music business.  He started out playing bass in local skiffle bands during the fifties and made his way up to a session musician at Decca.  In 1963, he was made a promoter and, a year later, moved to the production department.  He also dabbled in songwriting, with his tune Our Song being a hit for Malcolm Roberts in South America and recorded in the U.S. by Jack Jones.

In 1965, Clarke produced his first hit, Mirror, Mirror by Pinkerton's Colors which went to number 8 in the U.K.  In the U.S., his best known early production was most likely Baby Come Back for the Equals which featured a young Eddy Grant.

Clarke's true legacy was made when, in 1966, he was assigned to produce the Moody Blues who were looking like a one hit wonder after failing to follow up the song Go Now with another big charting record.  Their first assignment was to put together a rock version of Antonin Dvorak's New World Symphony, a project that was never completed.  Their next creation, the album Days of Future Past, would set the Moody's on a course that would make them one of the preeminent symphonic rock groups of all time.  The album also produced one of the most enduring songs of the last fifty years, Nights in White Satin.

Tony became the unofficial "sixth Moody" as he designed and shaped their sound over the next decade, producing such classic albums as In Search of the Lost Chord, In Search of the Lost Chord, To Our Children's Children's Children and Question of Balance.  During the group's mid-70's hiatus, he worked with the members on their solo projects and also produced Justin Hayward and John Lodge's duet album, Blue Jays.

When the group came back together in 1978 to record Octave, Clarke found the infighting too hard to handle and never worked with them again.  It signaled a major change in the course of the group's sound.Since that time, Clarke produced albums for numerous other artists, including Clanned, Alan Silvestri, Nicki Hopkins and Rick Wakeman.